7
MARISSA
Sleep is impossible.
I lie in the hotel bed, staring at the ceiling where Berlin's city lights paint shifting shadows through tinted windows that let the light in, but keep prying eyes out. My body aches with exhaustion, the pain medication wore off earlier and now every breath reminds me of bruised ribs and the graze on my arm. But weariness isn't what keeps me awake, and neither is the pain.
It's the feeling of Archer's hand still burning against my hip, hours after he released me in that elevator. How he looked at Koval when those fingers brushed my wrist haunts me. His voice went rough and possessive when he admitted wanting to break someone's hand for touching me, and the memory plays on repeat in my mind.
Being back in the Nocturne role should feel familiar. I've worn that mask so often the seductress persona feels automatic now. Tonight at Kronos should have been just another performance, another mission parameter to execute with professional detachment. I've played this role in worse situations, with men far more dangerous than Koval.
But something cracked open inside me when Archer's possessiveness turned real.
His reaction wasn't the tactical protectiveness of an operative guarding an asset, and it wasn't the professional concern of someone vouching for intelligence. What I saw in his eyes was genuine possession, primal and territorial, the kind that made him move closer when Koval touched me and made his fingers tighten on my hip like he was claiming something that belonged to him.
My crystal bracelets press cool against my wrist where they've rested since Prague. I trace the stones in the darkness, feeling for the grounding they've always provided. Marissa Vale wore these bracelets. Marissa Vale had boundaries and principles and a clear sense of self. But the woman lying in this bed can't distinguish where Marissa Vale ends and Nocturne begins anymore.
Especially not when Archer looks at me the way he did in that elevator.
Rain drums against the window, steady and hypnotic. A connecting door to Archer's room sits closed but unlocked, a boundary neither of us has acknowledged but both of us are aware of. I can hear him moving in there occasionally, restless sounds that suggest his sleep is as elusive as mine.
Time passes before I finally give up the pretense of rest. My feet find the floor, cold hardwood shocking against bare skin. A hotel robe hangs on the bathroom door, soft terry cloth that smells faintly of industrial laundry detergent. I wrap it around myself and move to the balcony doors, needing air that doesn't reek of recycled hotel atmosphere and distance from my own spiraling thoughts.
Berlin spreads below me when I step outside, rain-soaked and glittering with nightlife that never quite stops. The balcony stretches the width of the room, a chair pushed against therailing, and the rain has eased to a fine mist that feels cleansing against my skin. Cold air bites at exposed flesh, uncomfortable but present enough to anchor me in the moment rather than the memories clawing at my mind.
I grip the wet railing, letting the chill seep into my palms. Iron is solid beneath my hands, real and immediate. This isn't the monastery courtyard where bullets flew, and it isn't Koval's alcove where I slipped into Nocturne like putting on familiar armor. Berlin at night doesn't care about my crisis of identity or the way everything shifted when Archer admitted he wanted to claim me.
"You're not okay."
His voice comes from behind me, low and certain, delivered with the quiet authority he uses for everything else. I don't turn around, don't want him to see whatever expression is probably written across my face right now.
"I'm fine," I say, and the lie tastes bitter even as it leaves my mouth.
Footsteps cross the balcony, deliberate and unhurried. He stops beside me at the railing, close enough that warmth radiates from his body despite the cold mist and close enough that I notice he's wearing sleep pants and nothing else, his chest bare and the tactical scars visible in the ambient light from the city below.
"Don't." A single word carries weight. "Don't lie to me. Not here. Not now."
My hands tighten on the railing, knuckles going white with the pressure. "What do you want me to say? That slipping back into Nocturne tonight cracked something open? That I spent so long being her that the distinction between us has blurred beyond recognition?" Words come faster now, fueled by weariness and fear and the desperate need to make him understand. "That your possessiveness in that club shook mebecause it felt real, and I can't reconcile real with performance when I've been playing a role for so long?"
"Yes." His hand covers mine on the railing, warm and solid. "Say all of that. Say whatever you need to say without the tactical assessment or the professional distance. Just be honest."
Anger flares hot and defensive. "You want honesty? You came to Monaco to kill me. You're vouching for me because the evidence supports my story, not because you actually believe I'm worth saving. And now you're standing here asking me to be vulnerable when tomorrow night we meet with Koval and everything could still fall apart."
"You think I don't believe you're worth saving?" His other hand comes up to my jaw, turning my face toward him with insistence. "You think this is still about evidence and verification?"
Rain mists between us, cold droplets catching in his hair and on his bare shoulders. His eyes are dark and intense, searching my face for something I'm not sure I can give him. What he's asking for feels like exposure, like handing him a weapon and trusting he won't use it.
"The line between tactical specialist and real person keeps blurring," I whisper, the admission scraping past defenses that have kept me alive. "Between asset and something else. And I'm afraid to find out which it is because if it's real, if this matters, then you can break me in ways the Iron Choir never could."
His thumb traces my jawline, the touch impossibly soft for hands that have killed without hesitation. "It's real. Everything about this is real." His voice drops lower, rougher. "How I wanted to break Koval's hand when he touched you. How I can't stop thinking about you even when every tactical consideration says I should maintain distance. How looking at you makes me want to claim territory I have no right to claim."
Words settle into my chest, heavy and overwhelming and exactly what I needed to hear. "Archer?—"
"I'm not good at this." He cuts me off, but there's no harshness in it. "I'm good at missions and eliminations and following orders without question. But whatever this is between us, I'm navigating blind. All I know is that you're not just an asset anymore. You stopped being just an asset somewhere between Monte Carlo and Berlin, and I can't go back to professional boundaries when all I want is to pull you close and make it absolutely clear that you're mine to protect."
"Yours to protect?" My breath catches on the words. "Or just yours?"
His hand tightens slightly on my jaw, not painful but claiming. "Both. Either. The distinction doesn't matter anymore." Frustration bleeds through his controlled tone. "I just know that watching you slip into Nocturne tonight, seeing Koval look at you like you're something he could possess, made me want to put my hands on you and establish exactly who you belong with."
